Your linen, always under control

ECOWASH is an industrial laundry based in Riccione, on the Adriatic coast of Emilia-Romagna. We process bed linen, towels, bathrobes, table linen and workwear for hotels, restaurants, clinics, nursing homes and other businesses that cannot afford to run out of clean textiles — and we collect and deliver on a fixed weekly schedule, so the linen cupboard is somebody else’s problem.

Most of the questions we are asked before a first order are the same ones. What does an industrial laundry actually do that an in-house machine does not? What does it cost per kilogram? Should linen be rented or bought? How fast is the turnaround in August, when the coast is full? The guide below answers them.

What an industrial laundry does that an in-house machine cannot

A domestic or semi-professional machine washes. An industrial laundry runs a controlled process. Textiles are sorted by fabric, colour and soil level; each category is washed on a programme with its own temperature curve, chemical dosing and mechanical action; drying and finishing are matched to the fibre so that terry stays absorbent and polycotton comes out of the ironer without shine. Batches are weighed, tracked and inspected before they are wrapped.

The practical difference shows up in three places. Linen lasts longer, because the wash is calibrated rather than aggressive. Results are repeatable, because the programme does not depend on who loaded the machine. And your own staff stop spending paid hours on laundry, which in a 60-room hotel is usually the equivalent of a full-time position.

What industrial laundry costs in Emilia-Romagna

Commercial laundry in Italy is priced per kilogram of dry, clean textile, not per item. Rates depend on the mix, the volume and the frequency of collection. As an indication for the Rimini and Riccione area:

Four things move a quote inside those ranges: volume, because a full vehicle costs the same to run as a half-empty one; frequency, because three collections a week are cheaper per kilogram than one; soil level, because heavily stained kitchen linen needs a longer programme; and distance from the plant. Seasonality matters too — on this coast, capacity in July and August is worth planning in February.

The figure that actually belongs in a budget is not the rate but the cost per occupied room or per cover. That is why our estimate starts from rooms, beds or covers rather than from kilograms, and why the final price is confirmed only after a free on-site survey.

Linen rental or buying your own?

Buying means capital tied up in stock, a replacement budget, and someone responsible for counting it. Renting means a fixed rate per piece delivered, no purchase cost, no write-offs and no storage of spare par levels — the laundry carries the stock and replaces worn items as part of the service.

Rental usually wins when your linen turns over quickly, when occupancy swings hard between seasons, or when you are opening and would rather spend the capital on the rooms. Owning usually wins when your textiles are part of the brand — bespoke colours, embroidered logos, an unusual fabric weight — and when volumes are stable all year. Many of our clients do both: rented flat linen and bathroom terry, owned bespoke items.

Hygiene standards for hospitality and healthcare

Anything used in healthcare, elderly care or food service is a hygiene-critical textile. The European reference for laundered textiles is UNI EN 14065, which describes RABC — Risk Analysis and Biocontamination Control: identify where contamination can enter the process, control those points, and record that the controls worked. In practice that means a strict separation of dirty and clean sides of the plant, validated wash temperatures and disinfection stages, controlled handling and packaging after the wash, and documentation for each batch.

ECOWASH is built around the same logic. Sorting happens on the dirty side and never crosses back; wash programmes for healthcare textiles run a thermal disinfection stage; finished batches are inspected and wrapped before dispatch, and each one is recorded. If you are audited by an HACCP consultant or a healthcare authority, that record is what they want to see.

Turnaround, buffer stock and why par levels matter

Standard turnaround is 24 to 48 hours: linen collected in the morning comes back on the next scheduled delivery. What keeps a property running is not speed alone but the size of the circulating stock. The rule of thumb for hotels is three par — one set on the bed, one in the cupboard, one in the wash. Two par leaves no margin for a delayed delivery or a damaged batch; four ties up money in cotton.

Getting par levels right is part of the survey we do before the first collection. It is also the single most common reason a property thinks its laundry is slow when the real problem is that it never owned enough linen.

Where we collect and deliver

Our vans run daily along the Adriatic coast — Riccione, Rimini, Cattolica, Misano Adriatico, Bellaria-Igea Marina, Cesenatico, Cervia and Ravenna — and on scheduled routes inland across Romagna through Santarcangelo di Romagna, Cesena, Forlì and Faenza, with further routes into Emilia-Romagna where contracted volume justifies them.

Collection days are fixed when the contract starts, so your team always knows which morning the cage goes out. On the coast the schedule steps up through July and August and returns to the standard rhythm afterwards; inland it stays even all year. If your comune is not on the list, ask anyway — routes are planned around contracted volume, not around a map drawn in advance.

Changing laundry supplier without disrupting service

Switching is the part most operators worry about, and it is more routine than it looks. We survey the property and count the existing stock, agree collection days and par levels, run the first two weeks in parallel with your current arrangement where you want the safety margin, then take over fully. Nothing needs to happen on a changeover night, and there is no lock-in period to sign before you have seen the quality of a real batch.

If you would like a number for your own property, the calculator above gives an indicative monthly range in a few seconds, and a written quote follows a free on-site survey within 24 working hours.